14 DAY TRIAL // While Windows Vista is an old "friend" of peer-to-peer networks, Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system is a new "feline" in the jungle of illegal file sharing networks. The beta version made available by the Cupertino-based company at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2007 in San Francisco, was leaked onto a popular torrent tracker and is available for download. On a single particular website, claiming to be a superindex of in excess of 5,000 individual torrent trackers Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 9A466 WWDC '07 and APPLE MAC OSX LEOPARD V10 5 WWDC PREVIEW-BETAOSX 443061 499 are up for grabs.
But outside of the couple of downloads for Leopard, there is little else happening for version 10.5 of the Mac OS X operating system. And the same can be said about Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. A quick search reveals no more than 100 download links associated with the current platform from Apple. Monday, June 11 2007, Apple Chief Executive Office Steve Jobs showcased a feature complete Leopard version at WWDC. Just eight days later, the operating system was offers as a download on peer-to-peer networks.
But Leopard is nothing compared to Windows Vista. Released in January 2007 to the general public, Microsoft's latest operating system was already a veteran of the P2P file sharing networks. All the beta versions of the platform, and the Enterprise edition made available in November 2006 were already available for download. But the flood only ensued following the customer release. A search on the same website that offers Leopard for Windows Vista turns up over 500 results connected to the operating system. In this context, Vista follows in the footsteps of Windows XP, also a common presence on peer-to-peer networks. However, as long as it is confined to the Mac platform, Leopard will not even come close to the piracy levels of XP or Vista.